(3 cr.) At the heart of our national literature lies a
complex early narrative. It contains darker issues
with an unresolved past, conflicting histories,
encounters with the other, our Calvinist
relationship with Nature and nature, a mixed
psychology as colonials and revolutionaries, and
the tension between our aspiration to be the city
on the hill and the realities of life on the edge
of wilderness. It also contains the exuberance of
the new Adam (and Eve), where we can start the
story over again and again. This course invites
students to test and interrogate these ideas by
reading authors in the founding traditions of U.S.
literature, such as Charles Brockden Brown,
Phillis Wheatley, Susanna Rowson, Benjamin
Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathanial Hawthorne
and Mary Rowlandson.
Prerequisite: one course from EN level 200; Every Other Year, Spring